08:15am   I am back in front of my charts today after my holiday and also catching up on a shed-load of emails that have come in while I have been away.

Market Update:

Markets are being dominated by the stand-off between the U.S. and North Korea and the war of words between the two countries after a leaked report seems to show that the North Korean government has developed small nuclear warhead that will fit inside its missiles and is threatening to fire at the U.S. outpost of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. Trump’s reaction is a counter threat to fire back with ‘fire and fury of the likes never seen before’ so traders are watching news feeds with interest and losing interest in buying at the moment although understandably there has been a small surge in the Gold price in the past 12 hours and investors move towards safe haven products.

Before these latest occurrences, the Dow Jones 30 index hit another high at 22,179.50 before retreating backwards although my daily chart has become oversold very quickly which suggests some further bullish moves today/tomorrow – this will depend on a large part on the rhetoric from the White House and Pyongyang in the next 48 hours.  Asian markets overnight were understandably subdued as these latest developments are happening on their doorstep and only the Australian stock exchange showed any optimism by the close of the session, the ASX-200 closed up 20.49 points (+0.35%)

Europe is also opening this morning slightly in the red although the London FTSE-100 has just recovered some of its initial losses. There is not much economic news been announced today to help market direction apart from the weekly Crude Oil Inventories numbers this afternoon so prices will probably be news driven for most of the European/U.S. session today.  WTI Crude is now trading largely sideways after rising to the $50 level last week but we may some direction later today after we see how much oil stock the U.S. has been holding in the past week. The U.S. benchmark is currently sitting at $49.02 with my Daily chart hinting at a small move up before the end of the week.

Trading Diary:

09:45am    Nothing much to see on my collection of favourite charts at the moment so I am off for a cycle ride in the rain.

14:30pm    Just back from lunch and nothing yet on my charts worth trading, equity markets have not really settled down yet and we are still waiting for the Crude Oil Inventories announcement so it could be a quiet afternoon.

15:10pm     Markets still all over the place so I am going to close off my charts for the day and return at the normal time tomorrow morning.